The present invention relates to an arrest or anti-theft device for use on wheeled carts, such as shopping carts.
A problem faced by supermarkets and other stores which provide wheeled carts is cart loss due to theft or inadvertent removal. Many stores have attempted to minimize cart loss by installing cart barriers--typically composed of two or more closely spaced posts--which prevent passage of carts out of designated store areas. Since barriers of this type cannot be used in parking area driveways, the carts are confined to non-parking-lot areas of the store, often to the inconvenience of shoppers. Further, the narrowly spaced posts prevent wheelchair access to the store area.
Cart anti-theft devices which are compatible for use in driveways and other wide-access regions of a store area have also been proposed. One type of device proposed includes a hill-and-valley ground structure for capturing cart wheels or for bringing fixed-position brake pads on a cart into contact with the ground surface to arrest cart motion. The disadvantage of this type of device is that the hill-and-valley structure in a walkway or driveway may tend to trip people walking across the structure. Additionally, it may be difficult to disengage the cart from the structure and return it to allowed-access regions of the store.
Another type of cart anti-theft device which has been proposed in the prior art includes a wheel lock in one or more of the cart wheels. A ground follower in the device is used to sense a recess in the ground surface, and thereby actuate the lock. Wheel locking devices of this type are generally complex and relatively expensive to maintain in proper working order. Also, the wheel lock may be actuated inadvertently by a variety of events, such as raising an end of the cart, which could occur within the allowed-access regions of the store.
A third general type of anti-theft device designed to prevent shopping cart removal involves magnetic or electronic-signal activated wheel locks or alarms. Devices such as this are generally expensive to install and operate.
It is an object of the invention, therefore, to provide a cart anti-theft device which substantially overcomes above-mentioned limitations and disadvantages in cart anti-theft devices which have been proposed in the prior art.
A more particular object of the invention is to provide such a device which may include a substantially planar, ground-level grate.
Another object of the invention is to provide such a device which can function to arrest cart movement in specific direction only, permitting movement of an arrested cart readily back into an allowed-access region of a store or the like.
Another object of the invention is to provide such a device having a grate-engageable hook which can ride along a ground surface during normal cart use without becoming caught on surface irregularities, such as a door threshold or the like.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide such a device which is relatively inexpensive in manufacture, easily installed, and relatively maintenance free.
The arrest, or anti-theft device of the present invention includes a hook, connecting structure mounting the hook on a cart, and a ground-surface grate for engaging the hook, to arrest cart movement. The connecting structure has a pivoting region which accommodates swinging of the hook in a front-to-back direction with respect to the cart, and a shifting region which accommodates movement of the pivoting region between lowered and raised positions.
In one embodiment of the invention, the connecting structure comprises an elongated leg pivotably connected at its upper and lower ends to the cart and hook, respectively. The upper and lower pivot connections define the shifting and pivoting regions in the device, respectively.
In another embodiment of the invention, the hook is rigidly attached to the connecting structure, which is pivotally mounted on the cart by means of a pin extending through a slot in the structure. The slot is dimensioned to accommodate pivoting about the pin and shifting of the pin translationally within the slot.
In a third embodiment, the connecting structure includes an elongate spring connected at its upper and lower ends to the cart and hook, respectively. A flexible central portion of the spring defines the pivoting region of the connecting structure. This pivoting region is shiftable between lowered and raised positions either by pivoting of the spring at its point of connection to the cart, or by bending in the spring adjacent its point of connection to the cart, where the spring is rigidly attached to the cart.
These and other objects and features of the present invention will become more fully apparent when the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention are read in connection with the accompanying drawings.